


Little Bird

by ShatteredSky



Category: Whose Line Is It Anyway? RPF
Genre: Bird, Dying Relationship, Love, M/M, Metaphors, One Shot, Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 14:43:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6012025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShatteredSky/pseuds/ShatteredSky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A dying relationship symbolized in a dying bird.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Bird

**Author's Note:**

> I'm posting this because it's Valentine's Day and I wanted to celebrate with a special work. I've had this one-shot sitting around for awhile. I can't say I satisfied with it ( I never am ), but I really enjoyed creating it and the challenge of threading a symbolism throughout the story. I would love to hear some honest feedback. I hope to someday come along and write it into perfection, but for now, I give you this.

"Fucking shit." I swore, screeching on the car breaks with a jolt. It was too late, the white dove had already ricocheted with fatal force off the windshield, rolling off the hood and dropping into the asphalt.

"I just hit a fucking bird!" I swore in surprise. Sure people hit dogs, deer, an occasional raccoon, but a bird? What the fuck.

Ryan, riding in the passenger seat next to me, immediately opened his door and jumped out.

"There's no way it's alive, Ry." I called pessimistically after him. There was no way that tiny animal could have survived such an impact. With a sigh, I jammed the car into park and hopped out of the car after my lover. I found him kneeling on the road I front of my car, the limp white bird cupped in his hands.

"It's dead." I assured him. Ryan brought the birds chest to his ear and listened for a heartbeat.

I watched him, desperately searching for life in a hopeless body. I realized I'd seen that same look in his eyes... Eyes directed at me. Sometimes I'd wake up in the middle of the night to find him staring at me, eyes shinning in the darkness, searching. On the days when I could not bring myself to get out of bed, he laid with me, resting his ear against my chest, listening for the rise and fall of my breath. Promising he was here for me. Promising we would get through this.

"It's still breathing." Ryan exclaimed softly. For a split second I had forgotten about the bird and thought he was referring to me.

"It's alive." He added in a hushed whisper, eyes locked on to the fragile bird laying limply in his hands.

"What do we do?" I murmured.

"I think it's stunned." Ryan decided, standing up as he cradled the bird gentle against his chest. "We can't leave it here." He sighed, gently running his finger tips across the bird's soft head.

Fingertips that had run across my own skin with equal gentleness and fragility, careful not to break the already broken.

"Let's take it with us until it heals up." Ryan begged, looking at me for permission. I agreed, as if I could say no to his beautiful green eyes.

We finished our drive back with the injured bird cupped underneath Ryan's shirt, resting against his chest. Ryan had said something about keeping it warm.

Back at home, Ryan stabbed some holes in a cardboard box and made a nest of our rags for our newest addition  to inhabit. I watched him gently set the limp, feathery body into the box.

I remembered when we moved into our house together. Ryan had done his best to make us a home by cleaning everything and moving the furniture into the new house all by himself. He was determined to make it perfect. We'd struggled to move our bed through the front door and ended up getting the bed frame stuck halfway in. It was both hilarious and horrible at the same time. Needless to say we slept on the cold floor that first night, Ryan holding me tightly to keep me warm and comfortable. Those had been the good days...the days when we smiled easily and laughed often...

"We should name it." Ryan suggested out of the blue. It was late evening and we were both sitting on the couch, Ryan watching something on T.V while I was engrossed in a Satchel Page biography.

"Name what?" I mumbled engrossed in my reading.

"The bird." Ryan clarified. I looked up.

"It's not a pet, Ry. We aren't keeping it." I reminded him sternly.

Ryan rolled his eyes at me. "I know, but it's the least you could do after you _hit it_ at fifty miles per hour." He nudged me playfully with his elbow. I shook my head forcing a small smile.

We locked eyes and Ryan leaned in to kiss me. I kissed him back gently, with caution. When things began to heat up, I carefully pulled away and returned to my book, leaving the taller man hanging. I heard the couch groan as he stood up, I'd learned it was easier to let him leave than to face the disappointment in his eyes.

The bird was still lifeless by bedtime. Ryan insisted on moving the bird's box into our bedroom in case it woke up and started trashing about or whatnot. I watched him stop to check the bird once more before coming to bed. He lifted the box lid carefully and gently ran his fingers across the bird's still wings.

"Where are you, little bird?" Ryan asked the lifeless body in a whisper.

_"Where are you, Greg? Where do you go?"  Ryan's voice begged._

_"Ryan, I'm right here!" I laughed, giving Ryan a forced smile, squinting at him behind my glasses._

_"No you're not Greg. Your mind is somewhere else. I can't find you anymore."  Ryan rasped, his eyes glimmering into mine with a dead seriousness._

_"I-I don't know what you mean."  I stammered, desperate to believe my own words. Ryan only shook his head sadly, his eyes falling to the floor._

Ryan crawled into bed next to me, creaking the mattress and stirring me out of my flashback. My lover reached over and turned out the lights before burrowing deep under the covers with a sigh. I was still staring at the box with the little bird inside it, barely visible in the darkness. Inside the cardboard confines I knew the animal must be struggling for each breath, fighting against its own brokenness to become a it once was, whole.

"Do you think it will survive?" I whispered, not referring to the bird at all.

"I don't know, Gregory." Ryan sighed, his breath tickling my shoulder. "Only time will tell, I guess."

What if there isn't enough time?  What if we are racing against our last breath...

Ryan's hand moved across the ocean of sheets and found its way up my stomach and over the left side of my chest, always searching for a pulse.

\----------------------------------------------

Something woke me. Some disturbance in the force pulled me from the warm milky black sleep and sent me sitting straight up in bed. Morning light was filtering through the curtains illuminating the bedroom with a soft yellow light. My arm instinctively reached out searching for the warm solidity of Ryan's body next to me, but i found the space empty.

 _He's gone._ The panic sank into my stomach like a rock. _He's left you._

For reasons I don't know my eyes darted to the floor where the box containing the injured bird had been, I found the space empty and was filled with confusion and anxiety until I heard it. The soft sound of metal scraping through dirt and rock. I stumbled to the window, unable to register the sound's meaning. I blinked against the harsh morning light assaulting my un-adjusted eyes. I squinted, waiting for my eyes to clear and when they did it still took me a moment to register the scene outside my window. Outside in the early morning light my lover was standing in a far corner of our yard, digging underneath a tree. Digging...digging a hole. I squinted harder and craned my neck to see. Laying next to Ryan's feet was a familiar cardboard box being shadowed by the mounting pile of dirt that Ryan was scooping from the earth.

 _A grave._ I realized. _He's digging a grave._

An inexplicable emotion filled me. I didn't understand it and couldn't name it. As I watched Ryan drop his shovel to reach in to the box to pull the now stiff white body out and set the lifeless, broken bird into the ground, I felt the strangling need to run out there and demanding life back into the bird, to force breath back into its feathery body and throw it into the sky. I felt sick, weak, cold. I didn't know why. I didn't even like animals.

Ryan picked up the shovel to shove the dirt back into the hole, covering the body, sealing it into darkness. I felt as though I was being buried, my lungs suffocating, choking on the black dirt of death. I swallowed hard forcing the phantom feelings away. I looked back out the window to see Ryan walking back towards the house, the bird now buried in its hole.

I raced through the house in my bare feet, slipping around corners as I made a mad dash for the front door. I reached it just as Ryan was opening the door to enter. He looked up in surprise.

"Gregory, you're awake-" Ryan started in surprise but couldn't finish as I pounced on him, wrapping my arms desperately around him. I could feel the cold morning dew on his body, I pressed against him until I felt his warmth feeding back into mine. I clawed at his back, attempting get as close as physically possible, so to be completely surrounded in him.

"Don't let me die." I begged him breathlessly.

"Don't let me die."


End file.
